Shrivastava, Vaibhav
- Ghent University
Abstract
The European Union is actively promoting circular agriculture, aiming to reduce external inputs, close nutrient cycles, and minimise harmful emissions. This shift has spotlighted bio-based fertilisers (BBFs) as a potential substitute for energy-intensive and environmentally detrimental synthetic fertilisers. Nevertheless, research on resilience and eco-friendliness of BBFs remains limited. To address this, novel manure-derived BBF -ammonia water (AW) was examined in terms of agronomic (crop yield, nitrogen (N) fertiliser replacement value (NFRV)) and environmental (N2O, CO2, CH4, NH3) parameters in a lettuce pot cultivation. The AW had an initial alkaline pH of 11.2 (AW(pHini)), and another variant with pH adjusted to 5 (AW(pH5)) was tested for performance comparison against calcium ammonium nitrate (CAN). The agronomic efficiency was tested at three incremental N rates (30%, 60%, and 100% of crop N demand). AW(pHini) resulted in similar crop yield and N uptake compared to CAN for all N rates. NFRV for all N rates of AW(phini) exceeded 90%, however, significant reverse trend was noted for AW(ph5) (NFRV <90% for all rates) likely due to product's low pH affecting soil microbes. In terms of environmental performance, gaseous emissions for AW(phini) (52.2 CO(2)eq) showed significantly lower (p < 0.05) trend in comparison to CAN (120.2 CO(2)eq), AW(ph5) (114.1 CO(2)eq) and urea (101.3 CO(2)eq). The effect of acidification was observed in NH3 emissions, where AW(pH5 )resulted in significantly lower (p < 0.05) emissions compared to AW(pHini). More research in real-world field conditions with different crops is needed to confirm ammonia water's potential as a synthetic nitrogen fertiliser replacement.
Keywords
Bio-based fertilisers; Lactuca sativa; Greenhouse emissions; Nitrogen fertiliser replacement value; Ammonia water
Published in
Biocatalysis and Agricultural Biotechnology
2023, volume: 54, article number: 102907
SLU Authors
Global goals (SDG)
SDG2 Zero hunger
SDG13 Climate action
UKÄ Subject classification
Environmental Management
Agricultural Science
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bcab.2023.102907
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/144658